Former White House chief strategist and Breitbart News executive chairman Steven K. Bannon declared at a Macomb County, Michigan GOP Unity dinner on Wednesday that President Donald Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania because Trump understood the plight of the American Midwest and the middle-class.

Bannon told the Macomb County Republican audience that then-candidate Donald Trump was the finest candidate since Ronald Reagan and that Trump understood how globalism hollowed out America’s manufacturing base in the Midwest. Bannon said:

Let’s go back let’s go back in time in August 85 days before, Donald J. Trump, when I joined the campaign I think was August 13th or 14th. I think it was 12 – 16 points down basically double digits down at every battleground state. For every significant battleground state, I think was 70 on the generic ballot you got to be 99 of every 10 registered Republicans have to vote for you to be President I states. I think was like at 70, campaign didn’t have a lot of cash, not a lot of organization, but what we had was I thought the finest candidate to run for the presidency since Ronald Reagan. And just like Ronald Reagan he understood at a very deep level the problems of this country; he understood why Macomb County and certain areas of Michigan have gone from a global powerhouse in manufacturing to hollowed out. Donald Trump understood what globalization and the elites in this country—in other countries had done to working men and women in the United States and so all I told him I said look it’s very simple we’re just going to compare and contrast Hillary Clinton, who is the Guardian or the standard bearer the Tribune of a corrupt and incompetent elite with yourself who’s an agent of change.

By contrast, Bannon argued that Hillary stood for the status quo in America, which continues to destroy the country’s economy, culture, and military. Bannon explained:

I told candidate Trump at the time on that Saturday and then again on Sunday the 13th to the 14th he had 100% certitude to win if he just stuck with the playbook and that playbook was basically give people permission to vote for you as an agent of change. I said Hillary Clinton stands for exactly the way things are and folks in this country understand that the country is being destroyed economically, culturally, militarily and things can’t go on like this.

The former White House chief strategist suggested that Trump’s simple message of ending mass illegal immigration, curbing legal immigration, bringing back manufacturing jobs, and focusing on an America First foreign policy resonated with America’s working class.

Bannon said, “Now how did Donald Trump do that? He had just gotten very focused on what the message was of a handful of things, number one stop mass illegal immigration and start to deal with legal immigration to get our sovereignty back. Number two, bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. And number three, we have to bring an end to these pointless foreign wars.”

Bannon added, “People in this country are worried about their children and their grandchildren. They’re worried about where the factories went, who sent them there, and who made money off sending them there? They want to get focused on the problems in this country, not makeup problems.”

Bannon suggested that during the 2016 presidential campaign, they could see Donald Trump’s nationalist-populist rhetoric reaching America’s middle class across Pennsylvania and Michigan. The Breitbart News executive chairman then said that Trump connects with the average American in a way that Hillary could not.

Bannon contended:

We could look at the demographics and we look at what was happening around places like Youngstown, Ohio in Dubuque, Iowa. Our plan was, if we could see it coming back to us, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota and we could feel it coming back to us, we could feel it coming back to us. No president could have put that no candidate could have put that that group of states together and here’s the reason he speaks not just in a vernacular and connects to people he talks to folks like an adult about the most important issues of the day because he’s not a politician. It’s the reason I wanted to come here tonight, to have a partner’s conversation with y’all about exactly where we stand.

The only time I ever doubted was that on Election Day we finished in fact we finished in in Michigan, right? I’m not even sure Hillary Clinton—I think she went to Detroit one time I’m not sure.

Bannon concluded, “For too long we’ve allowed the geniuses on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley, in Washington, D.C. to dictate to the working men and women in this country, what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s good and what’s bad, and we’ve had now over 40 years of an ascending economy with technology in Silicon Valley, in Wall Street, in Hollywood, in the imperial capital of Washington, D.C. In Washington, D.C. seven of the nine counties that surround it are the richest counties in this country.”